A FIGHT to save recreational ground in Coventry from the hands of developers continues at a public inquiry today.

Families in the Henley Green area are trying to get the green space near their homes registered as a village green so it can't be built on as part of the New Deal for Communities regeneration programme.

The members of Henley Green Action Group have to prove that the community has used Luscombe Road Fields for recreation and sport for the past 20 years, without having to ask for permission or being stopped.

Pamela Willdig told the hearing on Friday that her family had moved to Luscombe Road in 1977, when her sons were aged eight and nine.

She said the boys had used the fields for all of their "growing up years", playing in trees, making dens and sledging on the slopes of the black pad, which is what local people call the disused railway line which runs through the land.

But Phillip Petchie, representing Coventry City Council in its capacity as landowner, questioned the suitability of the black pad area of land for village green status.

The land is overgrown and has become a designated nature conservation area, but Mr Petchie said much of it was inaccessible to the community and he also questioned how much it was used by children for making dens.

Mrs Willdig responded: "If you wear boots and jeans, anywhere is accessible and there are well-trodden paths.

"If you walk along the black pad there are areas of slope where children have pulled bits of sticks, plants and corrugated iron to make dens, and arches of brambles where they can get underneath."

Referring to a fete held on Luscombe Road Fields in 2005 to raise money for the community group, Mr Petchie said: "Preparations were quite advanced before contact was made with the city council.

"It seems a bit odd that the community would organise a fete without seeking the consent of the public body that owned the land."

Mrs Willdig said: "None of us had ever been involved with a fete before. We just assumed we could be on the field because everyone had always been on the field."